Team RadioShack manager Johan Bruyneel clarified news reports yesterday regarding the alleged snub by Giro d’Italia organizers, and said that although his team will indeed not be racing in the Giro this year, this was actually part of their overall plan, and not because of a snub by the organizers.

Bruyneel explained in his blog that Team RadioShack had already informed the Giro d’Italia organizers about their plans to race in the Tour of California instead of joining the Giro. He said that they had already contacted the RCS (the organizers of the Giro) to inform them that racing in the Giro “did not fit within RadioShack’s objectives and plans.” Bruyneel added that although he “liked the Giro” and thought it was a great race, still the team’s focus was to specifically race in the Amgen Tour of California instead.

This was partly due to the fact that…

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Johan Bruyneel recently addressed claims made by two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, saying that he didn’t receive the “technical support” he needed during last year’s Tour. He said earlier this month that he had to go to a bike shop to buy the time trial tires that he wanted for the 2009 Tour. Bruyneel, in an online chat at El Mundo, said that the statements were not at all true. “The members of the team, and above all, the leaders of the team, all had the same material. The truth is I am not sure where this information came from. I can guarantee you that they all had the same material,” he said.

Via Velo News….

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Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong enjoyed a nice third place at this year’s Tour. However, it almost didn’t even happen, according to his team manager and friend, Johan Bruyneel. Lance suffered a broken collarbone back in March which resulted from a crash in the Vuelta Castilla y León. The injury nearly put the brakes on the star’s comeback. “If I didn’t enjoy it I wouldn’t be back. There were days that I didn’t enjoy. I had the first major crash of my career. Sitting on the side of the road in Spain, headed to an anonymous hospital, I didn’t enjoy that, and I wanted to never come back. But to be honest, it was a conversation I had with (Bruyneel), and he said, ‘You have no choice in this issue, you have to come back.’ Outside of that period, I did enjoy…

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Johan Bruyneel, RadioShack’s team manager, has recently made some critical comments about two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador in an interview with the Belgian magazine Knack. Bruyneel was both Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador’s manager with Astana, but it seems that he sides more with the American. When Bruyneel was asked what he thought about Contador’s comments that he didn’t have admiration towards Armstrong, he said “Alberto has to learn that fame is temporary. His feet have to come back to the ground.” “Contador hit the summit like a rocket. In 2007 he won the Tour when nobody expected it. Suddenly, he became a superstar, a product, a God in the eyes of all Spaniards. And he has money, as much as he wants, since then. It is not easy to deal with all of this when you’re just a 26-year-old rider from the suburbs…

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